Jurgen Klopp has explained the thinking behind moving Harvey Elliott into Liverpool’s midfield prior to his injury last week. Klopp also talked up the wealth of options available to him in the middle of the park after Jordan Henderson and Naby Keita filled in for Elliott and Thiago Alcantara in Wednesday night’s 3-2 win over AC Milan.
Jurgen Klopp said: “We try to improve and we really try to develop and for that, the door is very open for everybody to be part of that. So far it worked out really well and with Harvey, it was nice to see how naturally he did that. A young player like him, you don’t fiddle with 5,000 pieces of information. You just let him play and have a look. OK [you see] what is natural and where does he need advice? He didn’t need a lot of advice, it was really nice to see and that is why he played. He had a full pre-season, did all the sessions and that is why he played. Now Hendo played the position and Naby came in on the other side and played a super game offensively, really dominant, and all that stuff. So it is nice to see that we can do that. The engine room of a football team is in the middle and we have only three positions and not five or whatever. That means they have to be fit and really in charge of the game as much as they can and that is why we decide from time to time we decide this or that.”
A detail of Liverpool’ s approach this term has been the overloading of the right side with Mohamed Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Elliott all combining at times. Klopp believes that tactical tweak is a key change in how they will attack this season with both Salah and Alexander-Arnold in fine form so far.
Jurgen Klopp added: “We try to develop every year. One thing that you have seen is a really flexible triangle on the right side and it was that flexible that Mo Salah had to defend the right full-back position [against Milan] because Trent was in the box and Hendo was in the middle of the park. We want that but, of course, we are still in the process of getting that really settled so we are not exposed at the same time in a situation like that. That gives you an advantage offensively but defensively you are slightly more open, so we have to try and get the rhythm exactly right but that is, for sure, a difference to last year. We want to do that on both wings and we need flexible triangles to get supported. Usually when Bobby (Roberto Firmino) is playing we get a lot of support from him by dropping in, but in the last game we didn’t want that. We did it differently and these are the things we talk about. It is not that we only tell the players who the next opponent is and play the same stuff again.”
